Facebook’s Mea Culpa Continues in Washington Post

For someone not known for being particularly outspoken, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is certainly making himself visible.

Following an e-mail exchange with tech blogger Robert Scoble yesterday, Zuckerbeg published an op-ed in today’s Washington Post. In it, Zuckerberg admits that Facebook “moved too fast” with its latest set of changes, particularly when it comes to giving users control over their information. “Simply put, many of you thought our controls were too complex,” Zuckerberg writes. “Our intention was to give you lots of granular controls; but that may not have been what many of you wanted.”

This is a common line from Facebook. In an interview I had early this month with Elliot Schrage, Facebook’s VP of global communications, marketing and public policy, he spoke of how Facebook sees a “tension” between having granular privacy controls and simplistic privacy controls. With their latest set of changes, Facebook offers more than 50 different settings to control what information displays on your profile and where its used in their system. With the upcoming changes — ones Zuckerberg promises is coming “as soon as possible” — it sounds like they’re tipping the balance more toward ease-of-use.